meet the parents

As a new generation of parents takes its place in the American
family album, what sensibilities will drive its approach to
marriage and child-rearing?

Some things don't change. Every new parent wants a healthy baby
with a happy childhood, trouble-free adolescence and the
opportunity for a successful adulthood. But subtle priorities and
principles shift from generation to generation, as people and
lifestyles change. And today, with a new generation entering
parenthood, certain questions arise: What will Gen Xers â€”
today between the ages of 25 and 37 â€” be like as parents?
Will they handle parenthood in a different way than their parents
and their Baby Boomer predecessors did? What has changed and what
remains the same?

After all, this is the generation that was infamously dubbed
â€œslackers.â€? In 1990 Newsday described it as the
generation that dropped out â€œwithout ever turning on the news
or tuning in to the social issues around them.â€? Reputedly the
wave of youth that idealized extended adolescence, glorified grunge
and revived the goatee, Gen Xers are now sinking into easy chairs
and nesting in newly bought homes. They've taken more time to
establish their careers, increasingly delayed marriage and
postponed childbearing. But now, Gen Xers are beginning to
establish families: Of 18.6 million households â€” 37.8 million
people â€” fully half of men and 57 percent of women ages 25 to
34 (the closest age breakdown to Gen X tracked by the census), a
total of 9.4 million, are married. In 2000, three-quarters of men
and women were married by age 35. Nearly two-thirds of women ages
25 to 34 (65 percent) have had children.

What is Gen X's approach to parenting? It is a blend of caution,
pragmatism and traditionalism â€” a mix of characteristics that
were shaped with the help of their parents. Gen Xers are the first
children of the new era of divorce to reach adulthood. For more
than a century, children in the United States lived with both
parents at home. During the 1970s, when Gen X was growing up, that
all started to change. The proportion of children living with their
parents, which had remained stable at about 85 percent since 1880,
began to slide. The divorce rate more than doubled, from 2.5
divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1965 to 5.3 by 1979. Between 1970
and 1990, the number of children living with only their mothers
doubled, from 11 percent to 22 percent, and the share of children
living in a nuclear family (defined as married couples with kids)
fell from 85 percent to 73 percent, according to the Census
Bureau's 2000 Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income
and Program Participation.

Call it the â€œHome Aloneâ€? factor. William Strauss,
author of Generations (William Morrow, 1992), cites
childhood divorce as one of the decisive experiences influencing
how Gen Xers shape their own families. Above all, they want to
avoid creating the broken homes, alimony disputes, absentee fathers
and tangles with stepparents that many of them experienced as
children, he says.

Gen Xers' childhood as latchkey kids has pushed them to value
family stability when it comes to their own children, says David
Stillman, a partner in BridgeWorks, a Sonoma, Calif.-based
generational consulting firm, who is himself a Gen X father of two.
â€œXers often came home to an empty house as children,â€?
Stillman says. â€œThey don't want to create broken homes
because they came from broken homes.â€? According to
generational marketing firm Yankelovich Inc. in Norwalk, Conn., Gen
Xers offer a corrective to certain freedoms and rebellions
expressed by their parents. As a result, â€œ[Gen] Xers are
approaching homemaking with caution and concern,â€? write Ann
Clurman and J. Walker Smith in the marketing bible, Rocking the
Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing.

Gen X writer Lauren Dockett interviewed more than 50 Gen X women
while researching her book, Facing 30: Women Talk about
Constructing a Real Life and Other Scary Rites of Passage (New
Harbinger, 1998). Dockett says she encountered quite a few women
who feared being left bereft by divorce, or unable to cope with the
possibility of single parenting. As a result, they are unusually
scared of replicating the precarious financial circumstances of
their mothers. When it comes to their own lives, they want to plan
ahead to avoid facing the same compromises and sacrifices, Dockett
says.

â€œOne thing we've noticed with our readers is much more
interest in planning for the long-term economic impact of
children,â€? says Sally Lee, editorial director of
Parents magazine. â€œGen X parents are very financially
savvy. They plan on saving from birth, even plan their family size
around economic considerations. They want to explore every option
the financial world has to offer, from 401(k)s to college savings
plans, in order to afford their child.â€?

This generation appears better prepared to avoid the financial
traps of their parents. Overall, 29 percent of the group has a
bachelor's or graduate degree, according to the 2000 Current
Population Survey. That's nearly 6 percentage points more than the
24 percent of their parents (the Silent Generation). Of particular
note: Gen X women are better educated than previous generations.
Nearly 30 percent of women ages 25 to 34 are college graduates,
compared with 27 percent of women ages 35 to 44, 28 percent of
those 45 to 54 and 20 percent of those ages 55 to 64. This
translates into greater earning power for Gen X women and a greater
ability to work full or part time at professional jobs and also
have children.

Pragmatists & Neo-Traditionalists

In addition to caution against repeating the mistakes of their
parents, traditionalism and pragmatism also appear to drive this
new generation of moms and dads. While this group agrees that one
parent should stay at home with the kids, it doesn't necessarily
have to be the mother. In a 2000 survey conducted by International
Communications Research for The Washington Post, 69 percent
of 18- to 30-year-olds agreed that â€œIt may be necessary for
mothers to be working because the family needs the money, but it
would be better if she could stay home and take care of the house
and children.â€? (Eighty percent of those ages 45 to 60 agreed
with that statement.)

The woman may still be the one who stays at home more often, but
that's no longer so rigid or assumed. Although 68 percent of
married and single young women admitted they'd rather not work if
they could afford it (according to a 2000 Youth Intelligence poll),
Gen Xers are fairly open to either parent staying home to care for
the kids. The Census Bureau doesn't report specifically on the
number of stay-at-home fathers, but a 1999 Yankelovich poll found
only 36 percent of Gen Xers believed there's something wrong with a
female-breadwinner, male-homemaker family, compared with 43 percent
of older respondents. And 93 percent said being a
â€œtraditional familyâ€? is not about having a stay-at-home
mom, it's about having a family built on love and strong moral
values.

Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett conducted a series of
informal â€œcocktail partyâ€? focus groups in late 1998
about Gen X men's approach to parenting. â€œWe found that Gen X
men are going into parenting expecting to be fully involved,â€?
says Denise Fedewa, senior vice president and planning director at
the agency. â€œThey wanted to take paternal leave, and talked
about having real fatherly involvement with their children.â€?
In a 2000 Radcliffe Public Policy Center poll of 1,008 workers over
age 21, conducted by Harris Interactive, more than 80 percent of
men ages 20 to 39 said having a work schedule that enables them to
spend time with family is more important than challenging work or a
high salary. And 70 percent said they would be willing to give up
some pay to spend more time with their families (compared with 63
percent of twentysomething women).

With men more involved in parenting, Fedewa believes more women
will be able to pursue personal fulfillment outside, and within,
motherhood. According to a 1998 New Strategist
Publications/National Opinion Research survey, only 15 percent of
Gen Xers believe it's more important for a wife to support her
husband's career than to have a career of her own. â€œFor most
Gen Xers, there's no question the woman will be in the labor
force,â€? says Cheryl Russell, editor in chief of Ithaca,
N.Y.-based New Strategist Publications. â€œOlder Boomers may
have wrung their hands over this; it's not an issue for Gen
X.â€?

While Boomers created new opportunities for women and broadened
opportunities and responsibilities for both genders, Gen Xers have
pushed those boundaries even further, although in a different way.
Says Tom Smith, director of the National Opinion Research Center's
General Social Survey: â€œOn a number of measures there's a
continuum.â€?

Whereas Boomer women were often ideologically motivated in terms
of their decision about marriage, career and family, Gen Xers are
much more practical and individualistic. â€œGen X women don't
need to prove anything,â€? says Russell. â€œThe Boomers
already did it all and proved it for them.â€? According to a
1998 New Strategist/National Opinion Research survey of Gen X women
and men, the household is an equal partnership. Eighty-three
percent of those ages 22 to 30, and 76 percent of those ages 31 to
40 preferred to share earning and household responsibilities
equally rather than according to traditional gender role divisions.
Gen X families work out their own arrangements, taking turns,
working as a tag team, weighing pragmatic factors about who makes
more and whose strengths lie where.

Smith says that one way in which Gen Xers seem to be bypassing
Boomer values is their emphasis on teaching children the value of
hard work. The general assumptions that work and obedience were
important qualities in children dominated until the 1960s, when
family became more about independence and equality between parents
and children. But the General Social Survey found Gen Xers are
returning to the earlier emphasis on hard work in that they are
likely to say that a strong work ethic is the most important
characteristic for a child. In a 1997 survey, the five values most
important to impart in children, 24 percent of Gen Xers said hard
work is the most important, compared with 17 percent of 45- to
54-year-olds and 15 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds.

Today's parents espouse certain traditional values the Boomers
rejected. Ira Matathia, global director of business development for
ad agency Euro RSCG Worldwide, sees a pattern of traditionalism
among Gen Xers. He cites both a resurgence in religion and a
concern about kids growing up too fast and headed in the wrong
direction. In a 1999 Yankelovich poll, 89 percent of Gen Xers say
parents today let their children get away with way too much. A
majority of Gen Xers say they'd like to see a return to more
traditional standards in parental responsibility (65 percent) and
marriage (57 percent). Whereas 74 percent of Gen Xers in 1998 said
they'd want a return to traditional standards in family life, only
56 percent of Boomers at the same life stage back in 1977
agreed.

Gen X families reveal the sensibility of a generation shaped by
economic uncertainty. Most members of the group were born into the
recession of the '70s and graduated from college in the recession
of the early '90s. What's more, according to BridgeWorks' Stillman,
Gen X parents were also hard hit by the steep increase in college
tuition. As a result, they make more calculated decisions about
when to splurge on the latest toy or gizmo and when to put money in
a 401(k) or college savings plan. According to a 1999 survey by the
Employee Benefit Research Institute, 68 percent of Gen Xers have
already begun saving for retirement, compared with 77 percent of
older Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1953).

â€œ[Gen Xers] start planning before they're even
pregnant,â€? says Janet Chan, editor in chief of
Parenting magazine. â€œAnd they think in specifics:
â€˜I'm going to take this kind of job. I'm going to
telecommute. I'm going to take time off or get flextime.â€™
They look at sequencing, at forming plans early on that will enable
them to make choices.â€?

Targeting the Gen X Parent

With Gen Xers now heading their own households, companies have
the opportunity to tailor messages to a new generation in its prime
spending years. Some brands that Gen X helped popularize are
beginning to adjust their marketing to reflect this new stage in
their customers' lives. For example, fall 2001 ads for handbag
designer Kate Spade showed children leaping out of station wagons
and tumbling around in pajamas, while Kenneth Cole ads showed
children swinging on tires.

Meanwhile, other brands have actually expanded their offerings
to include Gen X babies; Tommy Hilfiger and DKNY both have launched
children's lines. And Crate & Barrel opened a Gen X-specific
retail offshoot, CB2, in Chicago in January 2000. Says company
spokeswoman Bette Kahn: â€œWe opened CB2 to target Gen Xers,
the customers we had left behind through our own growth. While
Crate & Barrel is more mature and sophisticated, CB2 is more
urban, edgy, hip.â€?

Why does tailoring the merchandise to particular age groups
matter? Partly because each generation enters a life stage with its
own tastes and biases, and tailoring products to what customers
value is key to sales, says Matathia. He believes it's important to
look at both life stage and cohort together. He recently conducted
a study with Marian Salzman, global director of strategic planning
with Euro RSCG, called â€œGenerations and Gaps,â€? to
examine generational trends, and to see how Baby Boomers have
affected the generations before and after them. Crate & Barrel,
for example, found differences between the way Boomers set up home
and the way today's twenty- and thirtysomethings do so. They found
that today, Gen Xers are more interested in bringing home takeout
food than cooking gourmet meals. But instead of eating out of
cartons, they were displaying their carryout on beautiful dishes,
Kahn says. That's why, â€œwhile Crate & Barrel's colors are
dictated by season and fabric colors, CB2 has colors you'll never
find at Crate & Barrel like hot purple and hot pink,â€? she
says.

Fedewa of Leo Burnett says that most advertisers fail to take
into account Gen X characteristics when targeting them as parents.
When targeting mothers, for example, advertisers still tend to
revert to the soccer mom stereotype. But Gen X women, she says, may
not see themselves that way. While Boomers may have tried to be
supermom, Gen X mothers view themselves more pragmatically,
throwing old stereotypes aside in favor of more individualistic and
practical ideals, says Fedewa. â€œGen Xers approach life as
what we call â€˜Life Entrepreneurs.â€™ They don't subscribe
to all the institutions and traditions that are in place, but
instead take bits and pieces that work for them and throw out the
rest. They're each inventing their own system, approaching
parenting in very individualistic ways.â€?

For Gen X, and for American society overall, the family ideal is
in transition. â€œThe definition of family has expanded,â€?
says BridgeWorks' Stillman. â€œFor Gen X, family can be
cohabitation, same-sex partners, groups like on the show
Friends. It doesn't have to be narrowly defined.â€? He
says companies need to pay attention to those attitudes, and make
sure their marketing messages reflect a respect and understanding
of those families. The new Gen X parents may be a bit harder for
marketers to define or pin down than previous generations, but they
might also be a lot more fun. Says Fedewa: â€œThey're these
young, hip parents. They're having kids, but they're also still
watching MTV.â€?

the shape of the gen x family

The majority of Gen Xers are now married, and almost two-thirds
of Gen X women have children.

population

Total 25- to 34-year-olds

37.8 million

Total married 25- to 34-year-olds

20.3 million

household

Total 25- to 34-year-old households

18.6 million

Toal married 25- ot 34- year-old households

9.4 million

children

Toal 25- to 34- year-old women

37.8 million

Percent of women with childen 65%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

my kids are going to be different

One-third of Gen Xers think working mothers of
preschoolers is a bad thing, compared with half of
pre-Boomers.

In 1998, 63 percent of married 25- to 34-year-olds owned their
own homes, according to the Census Bureau. However, the patterns of
homeownership are changing, as Gen Xers are not necessarily getting
married before buying houses. Many singles and cohabitating couples
are making the leap into becoming homeowners before walking down
the aisle. According to the National Association of Realtors, in
2000, single females were second only to married couples in the
number of homes they buy (and 30 percent of them are under age 35),
with unmarried women accounting for 18 percent of all home buyers;
single men, 9 percent.

According to Builder magazine, Gen Xers are pragmatic
home buyers; they care most about builder reputation, followed by
affordability. They prefer informal floor plans and are interested
in houses with technological and ecological benefits (55 percent
say green housing is extremely or very important to them, and
three-fourths are willing to pay more for it). At the same time, 70
percent don't care much about living in an ethnically, socially or
economically diverse neighborhood.

Gen X housing preferences have been underresearched and the
market underestimated, claimed a March 2001 report in Urban
Land, and the building industry offers very few products
targeted to Gen Xers. According to the magazine, while Baby Boomers
believed that a home should signify one's success, Gen Xers see
their home as an expression of their individuality. Whereas Boomers
led to the late 1990s surge in McMansions, Gen Xers are willing to
sacrifice space for convenience, valuing proximity to work, schools
and other services. As a result, the magazine predicts a trend
toward townhomes, single-family dwellings and smaller houses.
â€” Pamela Paul